


History

by g33kg1rl



Series: Stolen Moments [4]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Also can't stress the level of memories Keith has regarding his dad, Because this is when they, But I had to write something to explain, Dad Kogane memories, First Meetings, Galaxy Garrison, Garrison Shiro here to talk to the kids, Gay Keith (Voltron), Gen, Hover bike, Hover bike racing across the desert, I know I'll be wrong in a week and a half, Inspirational Speeches, It's just fluff!, Keith & Shiro (Voltron) Friendship, Keith finding Shiro kinda cute - for an older guy, Keith ignoring Shiro, Keith wants to believe, Keith's dad - Freeform, Orphan Keith (Voltron), POV Keith (Voltron), Post-Season 6 healing, Shiro is good at those, Short & Sweet, Written before season 7 released, hints of Shiro being ill, innocently noticing he's hot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-06-20 11:23:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15533133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/g33kg1rl/pseuds/g33kg1rl
Summary: I watched him from the corner of my eye, trying hard to look disinterested - but it was space exploration. It was literally flying out to touch the stars, and this guy was acting like I could totally become something special.Opportunities, he said.I didn’t get those anymore.-------A short snippet of the possible meeting between Shiro and Keith after that classroom visit.





	History

**Author's Note:**

> I know I'm about 180% wrong with this possible meeting. Mostly, this was my way of dealing with the season 6 feels; but its also because I needed to feel like I understood why Keith is always ready to jump to Shiro's aid, his defense, always willing to do everything it takes to be there for him. So, this little fic is just a moment in time where Shiro helped Keith see he had a future after all.

Garrison tryouts were taking place over the summer break, and even though I wanted to turn and listen to the representative, it didn’t matter. It wouldn’t work. He had had us all play a stupid video game, explaining how it simulated piloting. I kicked everyone’s ass. But it didn’t matter. It just gave the other kids yet another reason to hate me. They glared, the instructor sort of raised an eyebrow as if he were impressed - and I squashed down on that fluttering moment of pride at doing so well.

No use feeling like I actually accomplished something. Nothing in my life would ever work out. I was cursed to be the orphaned kid who was different and a freak. The kid with weird eyes. The kid with anger management issues. The kid who liked…

The instructor began talking again. He had a sure and confident voice that sounded just a little too young to be a newly hired member of the Garrison staff. I always thought of the Garrison staff as old geezers either going bald or gray. This guy though, he didn’t seem like he was that much older than all us kids. I watched him from the corner of my eye, trying hard to look disinterested - but it was space exploration. It was literally flying out to touch the stars, and this guy was acting like I could totally become something special.

Opportunities, he said.

I didn’t get those anymore. Not since my dad died instead of trying to live. Not since my mom ran off on me as a baby.  I didn’t get opportunities. I got people I didn’t know tell me what was good for me, doing things behind my back that was supposed to be for my own good. I got dismissive attention. I got harassment, and I got behind-the-school fights. Opportunities were for people with a future, and I didn’t see me having one of those.

So I ignored him. Or pretended to ignore him. I hated myself a little for wanting what this guy was saying so bad… because I couldn’t hope for something better. If I never wanted more than what I got, I wouldn’t be hurt.

“I have a hover bike outside if anyone wants to see how it works-”

The instructor was bombarded by a chaotic cacophony of squeals and shouting. The teacher tried to shut them up, but it was a moot point.

Look out the window,I spied what had to be the guy’s hover bike.

A cherry red hover bike - and my heart jumped into my throat.

There was a dent in the fender, and I could just make out the tail-end of a scratched and faded number on the side.

I couldn’t breathe.

“If it’s all right, I was going to show how the garrison has trained me to pilot-”

I was up and out of my chair, nearly to the door before I realized no one else was standing yet. The guy, who looked like a senior in high school, maybe older, I don’t know, I’m not good with ages; he blinked at me in surprise. I felt my cheeks warm - then the kids started giggling at me, and I flushed deeper - but the guy smiled, slow and warm, and like he didn’t mind that I caused a scene. He acted like it was normal for people to just try and up and leave in the middle of a presentation.

“Let’s go, I can show you how I do donuts.” His smile was far too, _nice_.

But he patted my shoulder, motioning for the door. I peeked at him, and the name tag on his gray jacket read _T. Shirogane._ So the guy had a name. I followed him out the door, my feet shuffling a little as the other kids shoved past me and hurried to follow the guy out.

 _He has broad shoulders,_ I thought.

The desert is always dry, always hot, always harsh the second you step outside, and today was no different. Sometimes it felt like I was breathing dust more than air. But there, in the scorching sun, patches of harsh light glaring back at me; I took in the long scrape across the outer casing of the propeller, and the dent at the bottom of the belly that looked like a good hard kick had been planted there. Because that’s what had happened.

T. Shirogane took his garrison jacket off. He opened the seat and stuffed it inside while taking out his helmet. I wanted to snort and tell him that’s not how you feel this type of bike. You have to feel the wind in your hair, hear the hum of the engines, and feel the vibrations of the bike as it ate its way across the land - and that definitely meant no helmet. But then I watched him climb on top of it and my chest hurt all over again, because this wasn’t my dad’s bike anymore. This bike belonged to Shirogane, and he could do whatever the hell he wanted on _his_ bike. This wasn’t _my_ bike. I didn’t get a say anymore in how this bike was ridden.

I bit my cheek to keep the heat in my eyes at bay.

He revved the engine. It sounded off.

The guy eased it away from the squealing kids who herded after him, skirting the cloud of dust he kicked up. I couldn’t move. Standing alone in the blaze of the sun, I watched my memories of my dad hover away, before spinning into a tight circle and throwing a cheap donut in to get another peel of laughter and cheering from the kids.

The left propeller was slower than the right, I remembered. It was the side to do a donut on. It was the side dad and I used to lean into when we went out on our land on his days off. It was the same side that had the scratch.

It hit me then, really seeing my dad’s most precious possession flitting about (with a guy that kinda looked like him with that helmet on) that the bike didn’t belong to me anymore because my current foster guardian petitioned to sell it off so I could get new school clothes. The court granted him and his wife permission - and they used the money to buy a new t.v.

Shirogane did some more lame tricks that my classmates didn’t understand was kid-stuff. But when he came back, parking a little ways from the group, they all shouted questions left and right - asking how long it took me to learn to fly; asking if they could ride it; asking if he’s gone to outer space - and Shirogane was praised as a hero for his ability to fly in circles.

“I started doing sim training my third semester after I learned the basics; no, you can’t fly it; and I’ve gone up four times already to do things like drop off supplies for the space station and new parts for the satellite repairs.”

“Cool!” they echoed.

I stared at the bike, inching closer. I jerked my hand away from touching the rim of the propeller’s safety guard; but I wanted to touch it so bad. The smell of wind and dust mixed with the oil and petrol smell -

“Back inside.” The teacher shouted over the kids. “He’ll answer your questions one at a time inside.” She tried to get the kids under control, but they were too hyped up. Even as the teacher herded everyone back inside, I hung back, ignored like always, and quickly forgotten. I heard the guy laughing behind me before the door of the classroom closed, and I shuffled closer to the bike.

  
I did touch the bike then, rubbing my thumb along the scuff on the fender, remembering how I had flown over the fence and knicked it hard enough to send me into a nose dive. Dad had screamed in my ear, his hands grabbing the controls over-top mine and kicked the throttle with his boot. With a twist, a release of the break on one side, and a rev of the other, he had spun us in a fast and dirty donut, spraying dust all over us before the bike settled, idling as it hovered in place as Dad held the brakes tight with his fingers.

We looked like red ghosts covered in the desert dirt; and he had laughed, a mixture of terror and joy. _“Shoot boy, gotta be careful. Don’t get us dead now!”_

I had grinned, unable to stop myself from giggling, and Dad looked so worried when I took back the controls - but he had let me fly, yelling in my ear instructions on how to move with her, how to coax her to do neat little tricks, and the whole time I felt safe with him at my back to anchor me and his big hands hovering over my hands if I needed correction.

Circling the bike, I kept my hands on it the whole time. Every little blemish reminded me of our time together, back when everything was so simple. He used to fly me over to the window’s house about fifteen miles outside our place when he had to go to work. He’d be suited up, dressed up in his black fireman’s gear, and he’d ruffle my hair before he left for his shift. I’d have my little backpack of clothes and toys, ready to spend the next two days with Ms. Carlyle, and I’d watch him leave from the window, kneeling on her old floral couch that sagged in the middle and smelled like dogs. Or the time he had shown me how to do jumps. Or the time we had been up to our elbows in grease with smudges on our noses as we fixed the left propeller - well, tried too. It just never wanted to hum the way the right would.

“If you were planning to steal it, you should have taken off before now.”

The voice made me jump and I jerked around, meeting the eyes of the garrison instructor. Hands on his hips, chin tipped back and brow raised - he looked like he actually had authority that might have intimidate me. But there wasn’t much that truly scared me anymore. Just disappointed.

I looked back to the bike, a lump forming in my throat. He’d be leaving soon. I rubbed my thumb over the scratch that ran the length of the protective casing on the left propeller, remembering how it was Dad who had done that ten minutes after he yelled at me for kicking a soccer ball into it.

“Not going to steal it.” I muttered - though now that Mr. T. Shirogane brought it up, I really wanted to do just that. Maybe in another life I did steal it and ran off.

He was quiet for a while, and though I didn’t want to stop running my finger along the scrapes and dents, the tense feeling in my shoulders grew the longer Shirogane just stood there. I looked at him, and he in turn was staring at me, face softer, his shoulders rounded and a curiosity was in his eyes. The same sort of curiosity Ms. Carlyle’s schnauzer dogs got when I had played with my space ships and cars at the kitchen table.

“I got it last year. I found it in a junk yard.”

My face twisted and I jerked my gaze away, looking at the red bike. A junk yard? That’s where they sold it? I felt sick suddenly, and I swallowed around the lump in my throat.

“I couldn’t believe someone had tossed something so beautiful. I got it for cheap.”

“It is.” I said.

“What?”

I shrugged and jerked backwards a step, rubbing my nose to try and wipe away the snot gathering there.

“I always wondered who it used to belong too. It’s banged up, sure, but it’s in perfect condition.” Shirogane was suddenly just there, standing next to me. I looked up and up at him. He seemed to go on forever, and I hated him a little for having my dad’s bike. This was his now, and I never got a say in what happened to it. “It’s got scars and bruises, but, I don’t know. I was drawn to it. It has history, this bike. I can’t help but feel like whoever owned it loved it a lot.”

“It was my dad’s bike.” I found myself saying, staring at him and only him, daring him to challenge me, daring me to call me a liar, and daring him to show me he was just like everyone else who wouldn’t give a damn about me or who my dad had been.

The surprise on his face was satisfying, but the concern that pressed his brows together made me look away and stare at that scuff.

Shirogane was quiet for a while. It was an ugly silence, but it was also weighted. “What happened to him?”

Up to this point in my life, I realized no one had asked me that. Shirogane waited as I tried to breath, reliving the fire and the smoke, the cries as I watched. “Fire. He died saving people.” I wanted to say more, but I couldn’t. It felt too fresh. To raw. Years after, and it still left me hollow.

“Mom?”

I shrugged, shoving my hands in my pockets.

“Foster home?”

I nodded.

His hand suddenly thumped on my shoulder, squeezing it. His hands were big.

“What’s your name?”

“Keith.”

He nodded, eyes studying me so intense that I wanted to squirm. Then he smiled, a half twist of his lips to the side. “Wanna go for a ride?”

I blinked, my vision hyper-focusing in on the guy with the really nice big hands. “What?”

“The bike. Can you fly?”

A sort of numbness swept over me before the adrenaline hit. I nodded, holding my breath - and then the Shirogane was tossing the keys to me.

“Then lets go. You’ve only got ten minutes left of school anyway. Ditching early won’t kill you.” He smiled, and in that moment I wondered at how handsome he was.

Shirogane moved closer to the bike looking back at me expectantly, like he was waiting for me; like he was telling the truth and was waiting for me to get on-board. He waited with a soft smile and a look in his eyes that confused me… made me hope. Made me remember a time when I used to feel safe and wanted. He reminded me of better times.

I felt included.

And I held my breath… heart thudding in my ears… skin crawling with the need to believe…

“Come on,” Shirogane said, his voice gentle with a hint of a whisper, “I wanna see what you got.”

Darting forward, I ignored the hand he offered me and I climbed on board, finding old footholds and clinging to the dents in the finish. He laughed, and I couldn’t help but smile. I felt like I was going to shake out of my skin. Jamming the key in, I turned the engine over, grabbed the handlebars and toed the throttle.

Shirogane settled behind me and the moment I felt him reach around to hold the ‘oh shit’ bar that Dad had installed after my near nosedive, I hit the throttle and tore out of there. He shouted in my ear, shock, surprise, horror… thrill.

He laughed then, loud against my ear, and I smiled. I grinned and didn’t care at all if I got dust in my teeth. I flew till I forgot this T. Shirogane Garrison guy wasn’t my dad, I was orphaned, that this bike didn’t belong to me, that this would all end and I would be back where I began and have to watch him drive away with my bike. I flew and dipped and dove and spun and soared to more laughter in my ear, and I smiled even as the tears flowed down my cheeks to be coated in red dust.

We flew through the canyons, the walls varying in shades of color from a long ago river that no longer survived. I banked hard, leaning into the turn, feeling the hiss of the propeller on the right as it pushed against the wall of the canyon, and Shirogane followed my lead, leaning into the turn, trusting me - or maybe he was just as good as my dad had been, knowing when to push his weight around for those sharp turns. Either way, we leaned into the turn and came face to face with a boulder less than a hundred feet in front of us.

Shirogane shouted in my ear, but for me this wasn’t new, this was something Dad and I did all the time. I revved the engine, laying into the throttle, and with a burst of speed in the front and killing it in the back, the bike jerked upward and flew over the top of the boulder. I felt like I could breathe again, flying through the air, Shirogane behind me pressed close, and I saw nothing but the blue sky above….

Then I began to fall.

Kicking the boosters into gear, I throttled the engines and the propellers roared with the power and sent an explosion of dirt and sand around us, coating us in the stuff.

“You’re insane!” Shirogane laughed, and I smiled… and I began to remember.

We drove for hours, driving further out into the desert, visiting places I saw in my dreams at night, wishing for those days that I used to be happy. Dad wasn’t perfect. His job as a fireman took him away from home for days on end. Sometimes I wouldn’t see him for a full week. Sometimes after those long shifts he didn’t want to do anything except sleep. But he’d always make it up to me because he’d wake me up at dawn, and he’d drag me out to explore the desert, there with me, in that moment, and he was always _with_ me.

He was my hero.

We eventually pulled over, looking out at the desert as it changed colors in the setting sun. We hopped off and shook out the dirt in our hair and clothes, but by the look on Shirogane’s face when he finally saw me, I remembered the tears and rubbed at my face, trying to rid my cheeks of the dried mud.

“You’re good.” He said, shaking his jacket out then grimacing and opening the compartment in the seat and pulling out a leather jacket,slipping it on. He paused, eyed me, and held up a hoodie he had stashed in there as well. “You cold?”

“No.” I hardly ever got cold.

Shirogane turned then and leaned against his bike, smiling… smiling like I meant something important. It made me uncomfortable to think he thought something of me. “Seriously, you’re good. I’ve met third years who can’t fly as good as you.”  
I glanced away, stuffing my hands in my pockets, and I shrugged.

“Have you considered joining the garrison?”

“Even if I wanted too, I wouldn’t be able to afford it.”

“We have scholarships for that.”

“I’m a screw up. All my school record would say is that I get in fights.” That part I bit out, pissed off at the kids who constantly pushed me around. I didn’t put up with shit like that. Dad would have been upset with me for being in fights, but he would have been proud of me for standing up for myself. For standing up for him. Even for a mom who left us without a forwarding address. He used to say that it was better to fight for what was right than stand aside and let evil win. So, I’d fight to protect myself and prove I wasn’t some sissy fag who would let jerks push him around. Unfortunately, I was always the one singled out and punished. Probably because I won those fights more often than not.

I didn’t look at him because he was quiet, and I didn’t want to see the disappointment on his face. So I stared at the desert, at the places my dad and I used to explore and camp, and I let that horrible truth sink in, that I would always be seen as a screw up and not worth anyone’s time ever again. Hell, I saw myself that way. There was some part of me that hated that I was so unwanted, that even my own mother ran so far away from me that no one would could even find her to let her know her kid needed a parent because his dad died.

Shirogane scuffed his shoe on the ground.

I studied the sunset, still amazed by the desert’s ability to produce the most amazing sunsets.

“I could vouch for you.”

I whipped my head around, staring wide eyed at him. “Huh?”

Shirogane smiled, folding his arms, head tilted back, and he looked - relaxed. He looked like this was a real thing, like this was something he was serious about. Confident about. Something that didn’t mean he was throwing away his reputation. 

It scared me. Exhilarated me. Confused me.

“I could vouch for you. Next year I’ll be going through my graduation year, and the officers will listen to me. It’s half the reason they sent me out to talk to the schools. If I found a kid with exceptional skills, the Garrison wants me to snatch them up.”

That didn’t settle right with me. Made me feel like I was a prized cow or something. It must have shown on my face, because the guy’s face fell and he shook his head, raising both hands in the universal sign of trying to fix his screw up.

“I mean it though; you’re amazing. No one has ever been able to out-fly me and… well… you’ll surpass me in no one time.  I know it. You’re talented, and I can tell you’re smart. You’d do so well at the Garrison.”

I shook my head, feeling strange about the whole situation. “I’m not-”

“You will accomplish amazing things, Keith, I know it. You just need the opportunity, and I want to give that to you. You deserve it.” Shirogane said, and I couldn’t look away from his earnest eyes. His eyes were gray, like lead piping, and honest… like my dad’s.

My hands dropped to my sides, and Shirogane smiled, leaning back against the hover bike because we both knew he won. Somehow, he won, and I couldn’t even be pissed about it.

“But… I’m not… special. I’m just not.” My voice cracked on the words.

“I’ll let you in on a secret.” Shirogane leaned forward, holding my gaze, making my heart skip a beat. “No one is special. But you can work hard and do your best by never giving up on yourself, and that will make you stand out and shine.”

I caught my breath, feeling like I had just run a three-minute mile.

“I’d be there for you at the Garrison. I promise I’ll always be there to help you.”

My hands shook at my sides.

“What do you say?  You want to join the Garrison? Fly into space one day?”

“With you?” I found myself asking, and then I blushed - hard.

He smiled though, his eyes shining - though there was something sad about it, and he gripped his right wrist, rubbing his thumb over his pulse, before he focused back on me and his smile softened just as his voice dipped. “Who knows, maybe we’ll explore the galaxy together one day.”

I licked my lips.

“But you’d first have to say yes to joining the Garrison.”

I sort of hated myself for having this image of the two of us piloting a ship in space together… but I liked it. All those nights stargazing with my dad, there was a part of me that wanted to go up there where my dad always gazed with so much love at the starry sky.

He never told me why he’d drag me outside to watch the sky, but he would just shrug and say,  _“Sometimes you gotta look up and hope, son. No use lookin’ down with regret.”_

I looked up at Shirogane, swallowing hard around the lump in my throat. Maybe this was my one chance - this guy was giving me a chance to change my life by turning my sights back onto the sky.

Maybe…

Gasping for a breath of air, I nodded. Terror surged through me. My stomach dropped in my belly and yet, his smile bloomed like the setting sun and blinded me. I loved it.

My cheeks began to blush, because even at fifteen, I knew this man was going to be a problem in my life. I’d never be able to say no to him. I’d never be able to look at my life without wanting him there at my side to give me more of those smiles to share my joy, or rest those big hands on my shoulders at my pain. I was lost while also being the most grounded I had been since my dad’s death - and it was all thanks to one T. Shirogane.

“You won’t regret it.”

Regret was the last thing on my mind, determination, terror at making such a huge change to my sad, pathetic life, and hope… so much hope. He gave me hope for a better future. I wanted that, right now, so badly. I wanted the hope and joy that he held in his eyes, and I wanted him to share that with me. I’d never be able to hang onto it by myself, not with the way things slipped through my fingers. But to have him share some part of himself with me, I knew I could make it. The Garrison would be tolerable. He made me feel like I could do anything.

I vowed right then and there that I’d do anything for him in return.

His hand settled on my shoulder, and nodded, “You’ll do great, Keith.”

And for the first time, I really believed I could.

~~~~~*~~~~~


End file.
